Purgatory
by TLWGoneTooLong
Summary: Thanks to a nightmare from his past on the plateau Roxton does the unthinkable.
1. 1

Disclaimer: I do not own this show. What I have written is for entertainment purposes only.  
Thank you Beckers for helping me when I asked you.  
This is my second _The Lost World _story. I hope you like it.  
Babs  
  
**PURGATORY**

"You loved her so much and she loved you too. I knew it from the first moment I saw her." The woman's low voice gently taunted, "But that is over now."  
  
John Roxton stood beside the stone altar, staring straight ahead, under her power yet tormented to the very depth of his damned soul.  
  
"Now you are mine. Truly mine. I will never let you go. Not this time." Her hands rubbed his back firmly, savoring the feel of his tight muscles, and moved upward to his neck. She massaged it seductively then her fingers tangled in his hair, "Look at what you have done, my slave. Revel in it." She pushed his head down cruelly, forcing him to look at the last thing in the world he would ever want to see.  
  
Roxton could only gape at her, the dead woman laying on the slab, a knife protruding out of her chest where he had plunged it into her heart not thirty seconds previously. She was dead and her expression, those eyes wide and terror filled, were fixed and open. They were pleading with him, asking him why he would do such a thing, how he could just throw away everything they had built together. She trusted him -- _and she loved him_ -- and he was killing her.  
  
Under his mistress spell, Roxton nevertheless felt the tears rolling down his cheeks and the sob escape between his lips. "No … no." he keened.  
  
"Yes." she whispered in his ear. "Your precious beauty is dead, murdered by the man who loved her most, the lover she had faith in like no other, and you will hear her screams forever, my love. That is your punishment for betraying me, John Roxton."  
  
"Marguerite …" he whispered, reaching forward, gasping her name.  
  
Rough hands pushed him away.  
  
"You will never feel her arms around you. You will never delight in her kisses. And you will never hear her voice, so loving and understanding it could be at times, utter your name again -- except in the memory of her screams when you stabbed the life out of her …"  
  
"No! No!" he cried, his mind breaking, "No!!! God, Marguerite!"   
  
Danielle, queen of the voodoo priestesses, resurrected by her devoted people, pitched her head back and laughed manically like the cold-blooded and cruel woman she was.

.........

_Was it good? Do you want more?_


	2. 2

_Thank you everyone for your kindness. You have inspired me to continue. __Once again, thank you beckers for your help._

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_**PURGATORY** continued._ "Marguerite!" Challenger called, his rifle resting but ready on his shoulder.  
  
"Roxton!" Veronica, by his side, did her part as they walked the path, following clues.  
  
The trio had been searching for their friends for three days.   
  
"Where could they be?" Malone voiced his frustration, pulling at the straps to his backpack and taking the lead.  
  
A few day ago the Zanga had told them that Roxton and Marguerite did indeed show up for their biweekly opportunity at trade. Marguerite had purchased some fabric at a more than reasonable price and Roxton, using some considerable charm, bargained for salt, rare spices and a coffee. 

Assai had told them that Marguerite said they were going straight back to the treehouse. Roxton winked and said "We'll see."  
  
"The trail begins to veer here." Veronica said, crouching down and pushing aside a pile of leaves. Clearly there were two sets of bootprints, one a size eleven, running clear of the path.   
  
"Here!" Malone called from ahead, looking down into a small clearing. "I think we're on the right track."  
  
Having been tossed aside during some sort of mad scramble, the couple's things, included the items traded with the Zanga, lay near a dead and uprooted tree.  
  
"I can understand them losing the spices but what could have happened to make them dump their backpacks?" Veronica wondered.  
  
"Raptors?" Malone suggested, "Maybe they needed to lighten their load for an escape."  
  
Challenger rounded the dead tree, "Oh my god …" he whispered, alerting Malone and Veronica.  
  
"What is it?" Veronica wondered and followed Malone to where Challenger stood.  
  
All three looked down and a chill traveled up their spines.  
  
Both Roxton's and Marguerite's weapons were laying abandoned on the jungle floor.

%%%%

What was once a brave, fearless man lay, curled up on his right side, his head buried in quivering arms. Only hours before Danielle's servants had pushed him, battered and distraught, into a tiny enclosure that was built into the side of a tall mountain. He was caged like an animal but Roxton did not care. He would not have tried to get away even if there were no bars.  
  
"Marguerite …" Roxton whispered, his eyes squeezed shut, his teeth clenched together. It wasn't possible. He loved her. He could never hurt her. He would never kill her even if forced. They made love the last night before leaving the treehouse and hiking to the Zanga village. They were happy and open. He even managed to get Marguerite, however briefly, talking about their future and the delights they would share.  
  
But mental pictures of Marguerite smiling, laughing and stealing a kiss or two were quickly pushed aside for darker more frightening imagery. She was backed up against a cold, damp wall; lifting her hands in a fearful gesture. "No! No!" Marguerite cried, horrified. "Roxton, what are they doing?" she howled, "Stop them! What's the matter with you?!"  
  
Then she screamed in agony as something was driven into her body and Roxton, laying in his cell, wailing as her image - in pain and reaching for him - lost form and melted into blackness.  
  
"Why … why couldn't you have died then?" he gasped, speaking in a low nearly incomprehensible murmur, "Oh dear God … _Marguerite_ why couldn't you have just …?"   
  
"Sleep, my love." a voice droned from the outside of the cage, "Sleep and escape into the mysterious but oh so beautiful world of madness and nightmares!" 

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	3. 3

PURGATORY --- more.

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"They must be close." Challenger spoke resolutely from the path. He and the others looked downward at many footprints, some feet with shoes or boots and others without. It didn't take a tracker as good as Veronica to see that Marguerite and Roxton had been kidnapped and were being dragged off by plateau natives.

"But why did they make them abandon their supplies and weapons?" Malone wondered, "If the kidnappers were slave traders or even members of a cannibal tribe they would know enough to keep the supplies for themselves."

"I don't think that was the case, Ned." Challenger slowed as he spoke, "You saw how the guns were laid in a pile, behind a fallen tree and how the bags were tossed by the path."

"Roxton and Marguerite were laying down clues -- for us to find them?" Veronica asked.

"Yes." Challenger looked off into the distance and saw, in the horizon and beyond the trees, the tip top of a building, possibly a temple from the configuration. "I believe we're on the right track."

&&&

Roxton, sitting in his cell which had been cut out of the mountain side, was calmer. Danielle had allowed the drugs to wear off, her voodoo spell to dissipate, and now she faced her prisoner who - with clear eyes - appeared to be much more the man she remembered.

"The last time I saw you ..." Roxton began, standing from his sitting position.

"... you thought I had been killed." she finished, wearing a seductive smile as she walked cheekily up to the bars of his cage. "I was. Nearly beyond all hope. But my devoted people could not function without their queen and they brought me back."

"How?"

"Magic of course. It's amazing what a few virgin sacrifices will do on this plateau." Danielle spoke carelessly, with a smile.

Roxton slowly shook his head back and forth, staring at her. "You deserved to be dead." he said, his teeth gritted.

"Oh, you're not _still_ thinking about that woman are you?"

Roxton pulled his eyes off of her and once again their was pain in his expression. "You made me ..." he could not continue.

Danielle could: "You _murdered_ Marguerite." She allowed the sentence to roll off her tongue.

"_YOU_ murdered her!" Roxton barked, distraught and furious. "I was your instrument!" He walked up to the bars, rage on his face and a snarl in his voice, "You're a monster and you will die again, a horrible agonizing death, Danielle!"

"At your hands, John?" she asked too sweetly, mock innocence in her eyes.

"Yes." he replied, "And it will be _me_ who bathes in your blood." and there was once again an unsound gleam in his eyes.

"Try, Lord Roxton." Danielle turned about, her cape swishing behind her as she retraced her steps to the temple. "Just try."

&&&

"Challenger!"

He had told them to be quiet as they approached the temple but Veronica could not prevent the shout.

Malone was already kneeling beside the unmoving figure as she lay the ground. He checked her pulse and his expression was relieved.

"What is it?" Challenger approached at a trot, "Didn't I say we shouldn't ...? Oh, my God!"

Laying before them was Marguerite Krux, her complexion pale and the shoulder of her blouse bloodied.

"Is she?" Challenger asked.

"No." Veronica looked up at him, "She's alive!"

&&&

_I'm sorry it took so long to get Chapter 3 up. My computer was down. I'll try to get the other chapters done soon. __Babs_


	4. 4

_**PURGATORY - more.**_

_**Written by Babs **_

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"Marguerite, where is Roxton?" Veronica quickly asked when the woman's glazed eyes slowly fluttered open and she looked up at her friends.

"Give her a minute." Malone glanced at Veronica, surprised by the jungle woman's abruptness.

"Roxton may not have a minute."

They had Marguerite sitting up, her back to the thick trunk of a large tree, her light blue blouse half removed, revealing the fabric of her camisole as Challenger worked diligently on her wounded shoulder. "What happened, Marguerite? Do you remember?" The Professor asked gently as he bandaged her injury.

"We were attacked. It's Danielle. She's back." Marguerite spoke in a gravelly whisper.

"Danielle?" Veronica questioned, "That voodoo witch? That's not possible. Her people killed her."

"And they brought her back." Marguerite sat up a little straighter and slowly buttoned her blouse as Challenger finished his treatment. "She's trying to exact some terrible revenge on Roxton. And she made me a part of it." Suddenly panicked, Marguerite grasped Challenger's arm and used it to help her stand.

"Easy Marguerite." Malone took the other arm.

"Where are we?" Marguerite asked, looking up at the structure they stood near.

"It's an old temple." Veronica answered, recognizing the worry in Marguerite's expression as something they should not ignore, "We found your backpacks and weapons in a clearing further down the road."

"That was Roxton's idea." Marguerite spoke while scrutinizing the structure, "We were running from the Trogs and Roxton managed to kill a few but then we saw there were also natives running with them." She looked at Challenger, "They didn't seem interested in butchering us. As a matter of fact they all looked ..."

"...possessed." Challenger whispered, recalling Danielle's hold over her people. "They forced you to surrender your weapons?"

"Not quite. Roxton didn't want the guns to end up in the wrong hands and he somehow knew that, at least with these Trogs and natives, we were in no danger ... _yet_. He knew you would eventually find them and, hopefully, you would know we were in desperate trouble."

"And they did _just_ want to capture you?" Malone nodded, listening.

"I think Danielle wanted the pleasure of killing us for herself. That and torturing Roxton ..." Marguerite's eyes studied the temple structure once again, trying to remember something. "We have to find a way to get back in there. She's doing things to him; playing on his emotions and trying to destroy him spiritually ..."

"No fear." Challenger assured, "Roxton is a strong man. It will take more than Danielle to break him."

"You don't understand," Marguerite spoke urgently to them all, "She did something to him with a strange powder and all that peculiar hocus pocus she tried on all of us a couple years ago. She's grown stronger."

"Marguerite you don't _really_ believe ..."

"Challenger, are you forgetting the roof that fell in on me?" Malone asked.

"And how about how she made us all deathly ill so we couldn't follow she and Roxton to her village?" Veronica recalled.

"All right, there _may _be something to it but I just can't believe Roxton can be possessed because of some powder crushed from roots here on the plateau and a few so-called spiritual words mumbled over a fire ..."

"_Then you explain why Roxton stabbed me!"_ Marguerite cried in frustration, cracks appearing in her facade of strength and control. Regretfully, she bowed her head as the silently taken aback trio stared at her.

Malone lifted a hand to softly and sympathetically pat her back.

Later, a more composed Marguerite explained what had happened once they entered the temple.

_**Forty eight hours ago:**_

They struggled of course but the possessed natives were strong and plentiful. However, Marguerite was aware enough through her struggles to notice one of the native men lifting a hand, once they reached the large stone doors of the structure, and pressing a loose stone. The doors slid open easily then stilled with an echoing clank.

Not long after they were both flung into a shadowy room with four walls and no window. Straw was scattered on the floor.

"Certainly wish I had a gun about now." Marguerite grumbled as Roxton examined the damp, stone walls of their prison.

"I'm not a man to surrender my weapons easily. You know that, Marguerite." Roxton countered.

"I know." she confessed, a bit guilty over the idiocy her words may have implied. "What do you think they have planned for us, Roxton?"

"I'm not sure but if they wanted us dead ..."

"... we would be dead." Marguerite agreed, "Well, whatever they're going to do I hope it doesn't hurt much."

Roxton found himself chuckling at her dark sense of humor and said the words he knew she was waiting for, "At least we're together."

"Leave it to you." She returned his smile, warmly. "If ever you're going to work your magic Lord Roxton, and get us out of this predicament, now would be the time."

Roxton's smile lessoned as he looked about the small room. If an escape was going to come it would have to be later. There was no getting out of this room.

"It's cold in here." Marguerite said, hugging herself. She would not admit it but she was shivering as much from fear as from the chill in the air.

Roxton came to her, put an arm around her for warmth and reassurance, and they sat on the straw strewn floor together, "We'll get out of here. You watch." He removed his hat and lay it beside his right leg, "Soon the others will find the clues we left for them. If we don't manage to make it out on our own the others will follow and rescue us."

Marguerite looked up at Roxton. It was hard for him to feel helpless. She leaned into his body as they sat together. She felt his lips brush her forehead and she rested her head on his shoulder.

Less than eight hours later this same gentle man, the human being she was currently sharing body warmth with, would be coming after Marguerite with a razor-sharp, deadly dagger.

&&&

_**Once more, thank you Beckers for setting me straight when I went off on a tangent and nearly ruined this story!!! **_

_**MORE FICTION TO FOLLOW.**_


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